Deadly Infection
by elfmaiden4legs
Summary: ****Set directly after the end credits for 'Doctor Who and the Silurians', so spoilers for anyone who has not seen the episode. The Silurian plague has just claimed yet another victim, and this time its a personal blow for the Third Doctor and Liz when the Brigadier succumbs to the disease!
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

"Brigadier!" The Doctor exploded as he burst back into the scientific base barely ten minutes after he had left. The Brigadier's head shot up as the Time Lord sought him out from the crowd of people who had gathered in the small room as the base had been rocked by the recent explosion, and made a bee-line towards him. The expression upon his face was both terrifying and thunderous, and there was a burning rage within his bulbous eyes the likes of which the Brigadier had not witnessed from his friend before, and it filled him with an impending sense of dread. But still, true to rank and character, he held his ground.

The room began to clear rapidly as the Doctor approached the commanding officers side, and people began to realise that the angry Time Lord was only interested in one man. Most of them not wanting to get involved with an ensuing argument, the men and women silently crept from the room one by one, and then in small groups of three or four as angry voices promptly erupted behind them, until only a handful of some of the more braver UNIT officials lingered. All of whom remained completely ignored by the Doctor.

"That was murder!" He snarled, as the Brigadier got to his feet in order to face him and Liz Shaw hurried in behind, immediately putting herself between the Doctor and her commanding officer in an attempt to try and separate the two men. It was not in either man's nature to react to a situation with violence unless provoked, but she had never seen the Doctor quite this angry before, and the Brigadier was bound to have been made to feel threatened by this rather uncharacteristic tantrum and therefore more inclined to feel the need to defend himself.

Nobody noticed the Brigadier sway, overbalancing as he got to his feet, nor how his one hand gripped the edge of the desk next to him in order to steady himself. The other hand reached up to rub his warm forehead, fraught as he was and feeling increasingly unsteady on his own feet, but the Doctor was far too angry and Liz too busy doing her best to calm him, in order to notice.

"When I think of the things they might have taught us." The Doctor was saying, as Liz struggled to pacify his outburst of fury without much success. "They were a sensitive, intelligent race, and you destroyed them!"

"I had my orders!" The Brigadier declared, clear of his duty and swallowing hard as he prepared to defend his actions against the Doctor's tirade against him. "UNIT has a duty to protect the human race against any hostile threat, alien or otherwise, and I am an officiator of UNIT. I do not have the authority to override an official order… and besides," he ventured, "the Silurians had their chance, they could have approached us in peace and I for one would have been prepared to listen, but instead they decided to try and wipe out the entire human race. Still more innocent people may die before we can be sure that the plague has been effectively contained. Did you really expect us to take that risk with millions of people's lives?" He asked.

The Doctor glared at him, taking in the Brigadier's glowing cheeks, but passing off their rosy blush as a side effect of the past few days. He muttered something under his breath about 'You humans', and 'always too ready to blow something up,' and something about 'the most dangerous race in the universe', which the Brigadier didn't think was entirely fair. Even so the Doctor having been presented with such a reasoned argument could hardly dispute nor deny the validity of the Brigadier's statement. As time had gone on and with their alpha mercilessly slaughtered it had become increasingly apparent that the Silurian's had turned their battle into a clear case of 'us or them', with no room for compromise, and little hope of a diplomatic solution.

Having been presented with the facts he had to concede that the Brigadier probably hadn't had much of a choice in the matter. But this didn't stop the thought of such a pointless waste of intelligent life making his blood boil. The Brigadier meanwhile found his strength waning and he began to find himself weakening at the knees as the Doctor held him in a fierce gaze, finding it increasingly difficult to match the Time Lord's tenacity. But he remained confident in his own conviction that he had ultimately done the right thing, and this seemed to give rise to an inner strength.

Finally the Doctor swept away with a defeated growl and the Brigadier breathed a deep sigh as Liz too blew out her cheeks in relief. The Brigadier's heart was by now hammering away within his chest in a most alarming manner, giving fruit to an intense throbbing in his head and an acute dizziness which made it almost impossible for him to maintain his façade for much longer, and as Liz turned to look at him she noticed that there was blood dribbling down the back of one of his hands.

"You're hurt." She exclaimed, reaching instinctively for the sticky, oozing appenditure, but the Brigadier fixed her with as calm a look as he could muster under the circumstances and slowly shook his head.

"I don't think so." He smiled.

It was only now that Liz began to notice the angry flush of red to the Brigadier's cheeks set against the canvas of an incredibly pale complexion, and the sweat plastering his dark hair to his burning forehead and trickling down the sides of his neck. She noticed the unmistakable fluid filled swellings, only just visible beneath his sleeve cuff – the tell-tale first sign of the plagues manifestation – and her heart skipped a beat, leaping into her mouth. Some of the blisters had already burst, and were responsible for the sticky flow of dark blood now dripping in thin droplets from the tips of the Brigadier's fingers.

"I think I'd better sit down." The Brigadier wheezed as he began to lower himself to the ground.

"Doctor?" Liz called out urgently.

"What?" The Time Lord snapped, turning around just in time to watch the Brigadier slump to the ground, carried by the full force of his weight. His chest was rising and falling erratically as he struggled to take shallow breaths, and Liz struggled to support him, holding him up as best she could, in a bid to try and stop him hitting his head as he fell.

The Doctor was by her side and had taken her place in an instant, cradling the Brigadier gently in a remarkable display of strength as he carefully lowered his friend to the ground.

"It's alright Alistair." He soothed, his tone surprisingly tender and broken by deep concern considering his recent angry outburst as he too observed the oozing blisters protruding from just below the Brigadier's sleeve cuff. He looked back at Liz and where there had recently been an intense fire born of flaming fury burning behind his blue eyes she now only registered his alarm and ill-concealed fear. Neither said a word, they both knew what the infected pustules meant, and there was nothing to be said. Words could do nothing to help them now.

"Take it easy, everything's going to be alright." The Doctor did his best to reassure his friend. The Brigadier looked up at him helplessly, but was now only barely clinging onto consciousness. He coughed weakly.

The Silurians had just claimed their next victim.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The Doctor leaned over the Brigadier, where he lay sleeping upon the bed before him, and smiled. The Silurian plague had been a killer, and one which the Brigadier had only survived due to the mercies of a strong constitution and the fact that the Doctor had managed to find a cure in time, but his brush with the alien bacterium had left him in a significantly weakened state and in need of further medical attention. The Doctor had taken him aboard the TARDIS to rest whilst he recovered, and so that he could keep an eye on his most dear friend.

He was sleeping now the Doctor observed, and although he was without a doubt that the Brigadier was still very unwell he was quietly confident that he was over the worst. When only a few days before he'd seemed to have been so close to death it now looked as though, given time, he was going to make a full recovery, and the Doctor couldn't have been more relieved.

He now reproached himself for being so angry with the Brigadier for blowing up the Silurian stronghold, for he had almost been blindsided to the first stages of the contagions manifestation – such an ignorance which could have cost his friend his life – and looking back over the past few days he realised that he couldn't entirely blame the humans for being fearful of a race which had tried to wipe out their entire species.

The Doctor's mistake had been in making the assumption that because the Brigadier's body had been doing such a good job of holding off the effects of the infection for the first few days that he wasn't a carrier of the Silurian plague. The anti-biotics had probably helped him to stave off the initial effects of the bacterium, and thereby lulling them all into a false sense of who was most at risk of contracting the full blown strain of the disease, but the injections had only been a temporary solution to the epidemic. The Brigadier it had later transpired had not received a second dose of the anti-biotic after the first couple of days, and this had left his own immune system unable to cope with the growing infection as it spread its poison rapidly throughout his body. By the time the Doctor realised what was happening to his friend there was little more he could do than pump him full of a broad-spectrum anti-biotic and regular, measured doses, of the established cure for the plague, and hope for the best.

When Liz Shaw had entered the infirmary to check on the Brigadier just a few hours after he'd gone down with the disease and succumb to the infectious poison which was now being spread through septic blood to every organ in his body the only honest response he could give to her questioning was; _"He's fighting Liz, he's fighting"_ and fight the Brigadier had. He'd shown he was strong not just in body but in spirit, and that he had courage beyond the battlefield. His pulse had raced, his temperature sored, his skin oozed, and every vital organ at some stage had been in danger of failing, but still the Brigadier had failed to give up his fragile hold on life.

The Brigadier's blisters had since healed nicely, and all but a few had almost completely cleared up now the Doctor observed as he inspected the sleeping man's skin. There were still a few however which remained, oozing blood and infection, and the Brigadier's right arm remained tightly bandaged in a bid to try and ease some of the pain caused by the seeping lesions.

The fact of the matter was that his body was now clear of the disease, but he needed time to recover from its effect, and time recovery would in this case take, but the Doctor was well aware that the Brigadier was not going to like having rest enforced upon him.

As he put an ear to his shallow moving chest to check his breathing and reached for one limp wrist to check his pulse Liz knocked and entered carrying a metal try upon which were several vials of medication and a hypodermic syringe. She placed the tray down on a table beside the Brigadier's bed and looked down at her friend.

"How's he doing?" She asked.

"A little better I think." The Doctor responded, and she smiled as she filled the syringe with several millilitres of medication, before handing it to the Time Lord. The Doctor accepted it from her, and added a small amount of medication from each of the remaining vials to create a medicinal cocktail he hoped might aid the Brigadier's recovery. Liz watched as he flicked the bubbles from the anti-biotic solution, and then as he turned to her to give her a look she was used to receiving from him by now. His eyes still twinkled warmly, but now their steely stare held her attention, and despite the smile which curled the corners of his thin lips she realised that it was his way of asking for some space. She smoothed the Brigadier's hair flat against his forehead and smiled.

"I'll leave you to it then." She dismissed herself as he turned to leave, and the Doctor reached out to squeeze her hand affectionately.

"I'll be back at the lab if you need anything." She whispered in his ear as she left, squeezing his wrinkled wrist in return. "Let me know if there's any change."

She slipped out quietly and once she had gone the Doctor gently released the button securing the Brigadier's sleeve cuff and rolled the soft cotton arm of his pyjamas up to his shoulder. He rubbed the fleshiest part of the man's arm with a cotton swab of anti-septic and as he did the Brigadier stirred and opened his eyes, looking up at the Doctor through a tired but still keenly alert gaze.

"Sorry Alistair, did I wake you?" The Doctor asked kindly, using the Brigadier's rarely used Christian name and surprised to see the man awake and even more so alert despite the frail condition he was still in, but the corners of the Brigadier's mouth turned upwards in a weak smile as he made an effort to shake his head.

"No, you're alright Doctor." He explained in a voice almost as weak as he looked. "I wasn't asleep."

The Doctor looked down at the syringe in his hand.

"I need to give you this I'm afraid." He explained, holding up the hypodermic in front of the Brigadier for him to see and squirting some of the liquid out of the top of the needle.

"I'm not afraid of a needle Doctor, if that's what you're concerned about." The Brigadier wheezed, and there was no trace of fear or apprehension upon his face, only mild curiosity as he asked. "What is it?"

"Broad-spectrum anti-biotic," The Doctor explained, "and I want to continue to give you small measured doses of the anti-dote to the plague bacterium, just to be sure that the disease is completely out of your system."

The Brigadier watched as the sharp point of the needle pierced his skin and emptied its contents into the muscle, although he didn't flinch or show any sign of discomfort despite the fact that the Doctor realised that the process must have been uncomfortable for him in his condition at best, and possibly even painful. He then placed the now empty hypodermic back down upon the metal tray and rolled the Brigadier's sleeve back down before fastening it again at his wrist. He took a moment to double check the Brigadier's pulse before gently placing his arm beneath the blankets and covering the man over again. The Brigadier gave him a defiant look however as the Doctor perched himself on the edge of the bed, and as he withdrew his hand from beneath the blankets covering him the Doctor chuckled temperately.

"Still holding on to that stubborn streak of yours then, hey Brigadier?" He asked with a smile.

"I'm not quite dead yet Doctor," The man declared, "and whilst there is a single ounce of strength left within me I will not be mollycoddled."

"Perhaps," The Doctor considered mildly, "but you do need to take it easy Brigadier, you'll be vulnerable to secondary infection for a while yet and I cannot emphasize enough how dangerous that would be at this stage in your recovery."

"Rest?" The Brigadier exclaimed, although his vociferations, which the Doctor suspected were intended as a demonstration of his authority, came out more as a wet rattle which set his chest heaving with the effort of drawing breath. "But I can't just lie around here waiting to get better, I have a job to do. I have a department to run!" He coughed.

"My dear Brigadier," The Doctor smiled. "I'm afraid if you tried you would find yourself too weak to get out of bed, let alone return to your duties, but I'd love to see you try. Now, let's take a look at this arm."

The Doctor then set about carefully unravelling the Brigadier's bandages, and prising the dressings away from his bloodied arm. The Brigadier flinched and grimaced despite his obvious attempt to conceal his discomfort this time however, and the Doctor immediately ceased, looking down at him with concern in his eyes. Presently he withdrew a second hypodermic and injected a small amount of morphine into the Brigadier's shoulder.

"There, that should help with the pain." He smiled, and the Brigadier held his gaze gratefully. The Doctor waited a while, giving the medication enough time to take effect before finishing prising away the last of his friend's blood stained dressings from the oozing sores beneath.

The Brigadier observed his mangled arm, the flesh cracked and oozing blood and yellow puss, with a mixture of repulsion and lingering pain – he may have won his initial fight against the disease, but he was an intelligent man and was well aware that he was now in significant danger of the infection spreading to his blood. A few of the other surviving plague victims had already lost their lives in this way.

"So what's the verdict Doctor?" The Brigadier asked as he watched the Doctor patiently tend to his remaining blisters, cleaning the open wounds as best he could before applying an anti-septic solution and re-applying the sterile dressings and layers of bandages. When he'd finished taking great care to make sure that his friend's dressings were comfortable he looked down at him and sighed.

"Well your lungs still sound a little congested," He offered in explanation, "but clearer than they were, so you're likely to find breathing a little easier now. Your blood-pressure's up, and your temperatures down, but you've still got a long way to go. You're not out of the woods yet. You know there was a time only a few days ago when I thought we might have lost you."

"You should know by now that it will take more than a few alien germs to finish me off Doctor." The Brigadier forced a smile, but the Time Lord could see through the man's façade to the cold actuality expertly concealed behind his hard exterior. He could see through the man's smile to the pain in his eyes, and knew that he was still suffering a great deal more than he was letting on.

"I would hope that I'm made of stronger stuff than that." The Brigadier spoke from behind his one un-bandaged hand as he stifled a yawn.

The Doctor leaned over him as he inspected the dark circles within the bright blue irises of the man's tired looking eyes, and realised that he must be exhausted. "If you were not you would already be dead." He acquiesced with the merest hint of a small grin curling the corners of his lips. "Make sure that you get some rest, you only have a couple of hours before your next dose of medicine."

"I thought you said you weren't that kind of Doctor." The Brigadier laughed, as the Doctor got stiffly to his feet.

"Brigadier, I am every kind of Doctor." The Doctor smiled.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"Brigadier? Alistair, can you hear me?" The Doctor asked.

Liz struggled to try and access the Brigadier's rapidly deteriorating condition, and stabilise him where he lay upon the cold, hard floor, whilst the Doctor tried to tend to his seeping arm. His whole body appeared to have gone rigid with pain and he was only barely clinging onto consciousness now, but still an occasional whimper escaped him – quite unlike his normally composed self, and the stiff-upper-lip demeanour he presented. His pulse was weak, and Liz struggled to locate it at first, as her fingers gently searched one cold and clammy wrist before moving on to the side of his neck.

"He's barely breathing." She choked as she leaned gently over his prostrate form, one ear hovering over his mouth trying to listen for a breath, and a hand resting upon his shallow moving chest. "Doctor I can barely detect a pulse, we need to move him to the infirmary."

The Doctor felt the Brigadier's forehead with the back of his hand, tenderly brushing a few stray strands of hair away from the man's face, and grimaced as he felt the heat of his fever. He gently lifted one eyelid with a careful thumb and then another, inspecting the whites of his unconscious friend's eyes, before inspecting the rest of the Brigadier's face and neck for any sign of fresh sores and lesions. There was a sense of urgency befitting to the scale of the situation in the way he worked, but the young woman was both bewildered and mesmerised by the Doctor's gentleness. She watched as his hands carefully searched the man's whole body, starting with his head and neck as he massaged his swollen glands, and then as he removed and neatly folded his crushed velvet jacket before supporting the man's neck as he placed it at the base of the Brigadier's skull in order to cushion his head.

Finally he looked across at Liz and shook his head gravely.

"Those incompetent idiots in charge of that sham of what they call an infirmary Liz have no idea of the scale of what they are dealing with." He explained. "They may as well treat the Brigadier with sugar solution and sit back and hope for the best for all the good they can do him now."

The Doctor continued to scan the Brigadier's broken body for any clue as to the infection's future course. He observed the pallor of the man's complexion, and the beads of perspiration plastering his dark hair to his clammy forehead, and shook his head, "No," he resolved, "I will take care of him myself."

Liz looked up at the Time Lord, surprised by the slight quake and the emotional break in his voice as he spoke. She knew that the Doctor was very fond of the Brigadier, although he didn't show it very often. They appeared to go back a long way, longer than her own affiliation with UNIT, and from the way she sometimes heard them talking it seemed as though they'd been through a lot together over the years. She watched his hands skilfully probe the Brigadier's unmoving body, and with remarkable tenderness palpate his ribs and abdomen.

"It's alright Alistair," she'd watched him whisper comfortingly, placing a reassuring hand against his friend's shoulder in order to try and steady him as this caused the Brigadier to cry out in a sudden exclamation of apparent pain, "just lie still, it'll all be over soon."

This sudden yelp was only a subconscious demonstration of the unconscious man's distress however, and the Brigadier remained limp in the Doctor's arms and made no further protest.

She observed the thoughtful expression upon the Doctor's face, and how his eyes quickly scanned the prostrate form before him. The Brigadier's breathing was becoming rapid and more laboured, the virus had managed to completely deplete the man's immune system despite the course of broad-spectrum anti-biotics he'd received, and had caused his temperate to soar as what was left of his failing anatomy struggled to fight the invading pathogen. His body was beginning to perspire uncontrollably, and as his teeth began to chatter and his unconscious frame was wracked by a violent bout of shivers Liz noticed that his uniform was now almost completely soaked through with sweat. As the Doctor carefully unbuttoned his friend's jacket and gently lifted the sodden shirt beneath they both observed the pattern of pink and purple bruising vibrantly evident against his pallid flesh and as he coughed weakly a tiny trickle of blood bubbled up between the Brigadier's grey lips and dribbled down his pale cheek. At the sight of this small trail of crimson liquid Liz felt her heart cease to beat and the sickening sinking feeling rising in the pit of her stomach as the bottom suddenly dropped out of her world. She was after all a doctor herself, and could not escape the knowledge that her own medical training afforded her. She knew what the bruising meant – so did the Doctor, she could tell by the hopeless and somewhat frightened look in his eyes – and it broke her heart. It often appeared as though the Doctor wasn't afraid of anything, save it now seemed of the prospect of losing one of this closest friend's, for none of the other plague victims had survived for very long after they'd started to exhibit the same symptoms.

The Brigadier was bleeding internally.

"Well," The Doctor sighed, as he finally completed his preliminary examination of the Brigadier's condition and leant back on his haunches, rubbing his hands across his face in deep thought, "he's got a fight on his hands that's for sure." He explained gravely. "Even without machines it is obvious that the infection has completely overwhelmed his immune system. To be honest it's a wonder he's lasted this long."

"You mean he could die?" Liz asked.

"He's in a bad way Liz." The Doctor explained plainly. "I can't guarantee anything at this stage. I would be lying if I told you that everything was going to be alright, that he wasn't going to die, and I won't offer you false hope nor insult your intelligence by doing so. All I can say is this, that the Brigadier at this moment_ is_ fighting, and I for one am not going to give up on him."

"I don't want to lose him." She sobbed.

"I don't want to lose him either Liz." The Doctor suddenly snapped at her, and then seeing her fraught expression quickly revised his tone. "I know I might not show my emotions as often as you humans do but I would entrust Alistair with my life. I too am really very fond of him."

A small and anxious crowd had by now began to gather around them, as the people who had quickly vacated the room upon the Doctor's fiery entrance now returned to gaze curiously down at the unconscious man being cradled in the Time Lord's arms upon the floor before them, and the young woman leaning over him. A few of the more higher ranking UNIT officials were doing their best to maintain order and usher people from the room, but there were still those who insisted they stay – concerned for the wellbeing of their commanding officer. Someone presented the Doctor with a rather sparse looking first aid kit and as Liz began to wonder just what good Elastoplast and bandages could do their friend now the Time Lord set about binding the Brigadier's arm, which was still oozing blood and infection. Liz meanwhile removed her own coat and draped it over the man's shivering form.

As she did so she cupped her friend's clammy cheek within the palm of her hand and planted a gentle kiss upon his sweaty forehead, allowing a few of her own tears to mingle with the beads of perspiration dripping from the sleeping man's hair.

"You'll be alright Alistair." She whispered, hoping against all reason and logic that he could hear her and that her words would somehow spur him on to carry on fighting. "We're going to take good care of you. You just need to hold on in there and make sure that you don't give up, you hear me? Never give up!"

She thought that she felt the Brigadier squeeze her fingers lightly as she said this, and with this small but significant gesture a tiny seed of hope was planted in her heart.

"He's in a deep coma." The Doctor explained a few moments later however, and she turned to look at him – this time failing to disguise the tears in her eyes. "But that isn't surprising given the circumstances," He sighed, before proceeding to direct his list of instructions and requirements directly towards the young woman, "if he wasn't so strong he'd already be dead by now." The Time Lord explained. "We need to get him to the infirmary. He's going to need a blood transfusion and a course of strong anti-biotics. We may already be too late but I am going to start him on a course of injections straight away. We won't know what the full extent of the damage is until I have more information I'm afraid, but I need to check his heart rate and blood pressure."

The Doctor then lifted the Brigadier gently into his arms in a remarkable display of strength for a man of his age, and Liz watched as his arm fell limply to his side. The Brigadier's face was ashen grey, and if it wasn't for the fact that she could still hear his laboured breathing and had thought that she had felt him weakly squeeze her fingers just moments before she might have been convinced into believing that he was already dead.

It seemed to Liz as though even with all the medical expertise at his disposal it would take a miracle for the Brigadier to come out of this alive, and Liz Shaw just didn't believe in miracles.


End file.
